Mediagazer: Planet Money's crowdfunded T-shirt project surpasses goal by more than $200,000 (Andrew Beaujon/Poynter)

6:35 AM ET, May 7, 2013

Top News:

Newspapers: A Cautionary Tale For Local TV — The parallels between TV stations today and newspapers in 2005 should be heeded by local TV executives. The trends are equally troubling and there is much they can learn from newspapers' experience and response. Clearly, audience and advertisers are moving to digital platforms.

Discussion: @kenericson and @dskok

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Howard Kurtz's Bad Reporting About Jason Collins Cost Him a Lot of Money — Contrary to appearances, Howard Kurtz didn't lose his job at the Daily Beast over his boneheaded reporting about gay basketball star Jason Collins, or over his excessive extracurricular work. What he did lose was money — quite a lot of it.

Discussion: Media News, The Huffington Post and Tampabay.com

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

Howard Kurtz's Mea Culpa Isn't Good Enough — Merely repeating an apology and stressing one's sincerity is not a ticket back to play on the journalism field. — I wish I could say that Howard Kurtz's mea culpa on “Reliable Sources” was convincing. But it wasn't.

Discussion: TVNewser, Erik Wemple, Poynter and Chickaboomer

C. Custer / Tech in Asia:

Baidu Buys PPS Video for $370 Million, Now China's Biggest Video Platform — Well, the rumors are true. Chinese search company Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) announced today that it has acquired PPS.tv's streaming video service for $370 million. The acquisition bolsters Baidu's video offerings …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, TechNode and The Next Web

Deirdre Mask / The Atlantic Online:

Why Do NPR Reporters Have Such Great Names? — What makes NPR reporters' names so particularly mellifluous? There's that pleasing alliteration — Allison Aubrey, Louisa Lim, Carl Kassell, Susan Stamberg. And it's hard to match those mouth-filling double-barrelled names.

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Double coverage: How The Boston Globe used its dual sites to cover the marathon bombing — April 15 was always going to be a big day for The Boston Globe. Marathon Day is traditionally one of the busiest for the newspaper, with its staff deployed around the city following the race …

Discussion: Boston Globe

Caroline O'Donovan / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Monday Q&A: The New York Times' new head of video production on plans for growth — Rebecca Howard occupies a unique position at The New York Times. She came to the paper with experience from the AOL/Huffington Post video department and Fox Digital Studios, where she has worked on both branded and original content.

Discussion: Soup

Paul Harris / Guardian:

Harper Lee sues agent over copyright to To Kill A Mockingbird — Author claims she was duped into signing over the rights on her prizewinning book — Harper Lee, the reclusive author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has sued a literary agent, claiming that he tricked the ageing writer into assigning him copyright on the classic book.

Discussion: NPR, USA Today, New York Times and bookforum.com

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Aereo doesn't want to take its legal fight on the road — Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia (Associated Press) — A lawsuit to stop lawsuits? — That's the latest twist in the fight between Aereo, a start-up company that streams broadcast TV signals over the Internet, and the networks trying to put it out of business.

Discussion: Bloomberg, Adweek, Associated Press and Variety

Greg Sandoval / The Verge:
Aereo files suit against CBS to head off second copyright claim from network

Discussion: AllThingsD, Hollywood Reporter, TechCrunch, Plagiarism Today, Reuters, Poynter and paidContent

Gustavo Arellano / Navel Gazing:

OC Register to No Longer Accept Adult Ads—Wait, You Didn't Know They Ran 'Em? — Whenever people get on our case about the sexytimes ads we run in our infernal rag, I always point out that the Orange County Register run those sames ads, except smaller, coded, and in the back pages of its Sports section.

Discussion: Poynter and LA Observed

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

Behind the Scenes at Fox — A few days before the presidential election last November, Roger Ailes, the chief executive of Fox News, ordered that Geraldo Rivera's microphone be cut off after Mr. Rivera angrily defended the Obama administration against charges levied by others on Fox.

Discussion: Mediaite, Inside Cable News, The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Gawker, Tucson Citizen, Wonkette, TVNewser, The Raw Story, New York Magazine and jdp feed

Alex Sherman / Bloomberg:

DirecTV Spurns Dish's View That Wireless Is Satellite-TV Savior — The two largest satellite-television companies in the U.S., after almost two decades of building their businesses with similar strategies, are now heading in almost exactly the opposite directions.

Andrew Beaujon / Poynter:

Planet Money's crowdfunded T-shirt project surpasses goal by more than $200,000 — Donors to Planet Money's crowdfunded project to report out the life of a T-shirt have contributed more than five times the amount of cash the program hoped to raise in a Kickstarter campaign. In its pledge, the program says it will: